This strong human document analyzes the high suicide rate (one every 30 minutes) among cotton farmers in India. It is a story of bad weather (no rain), huge debts, genetically modified organisms (GMO), pesticides, farm sizes and world markets (prices).
Nearly all Indian farmers were convinced (with the promise of higher returns) to exchange their local cotton seeds by GMO seeds provided by a transnational company with a monopoly. While with their local seeds they could constitute every year a stock of plant seeds for the next harvest, they can't do that with GMO. They have to buy every year new plant seeds, as well as the necessary pesticides sold by the same company. One bad harvest can be enough to put a small farmer into insurmountable troubles.
Moreover, all farmers live in a community built on traditional Indian 'values', as status, reputation and dowries for daughters. If one can't pay a dowry, one will not find a 'perfect match' for his daughter, and the family will become the laughing stock of the whole village.
Micha X. Peled explains perfectly through the eyes of an Indian student journalist who follows the tribulations of a farmer and his family, the harsh battle for survival of small farmers in the Third World. A must see for all those who want to understand the world we live in.
Nearly all Indian farmers were convinced (with the promise of higher returns) to exchange their local cotton seeds by GMO seeds provided by a transnational company with a monopoly. While with their local seeds they could constitute every year a stock of plant seeds for the next harvest, they can't do that with GMO. They have to buy every year new plant seeds, as well as the necessary pesticides sold by the same company. One bad harvest can be enough to put a small farmer into insurmountable troubles.
Moreover, all farmers live in a community built on traditional Indian 'values', as status, reputation and dowries for daughters. If one can't pay a dowry, one will not find a 'perfect match' for his daughter, and the family will become the laughing stock of the whole village.
Micha X. Peled explains perfectly through the eyes of an Indian student journalist who follows the tribulations of a farmer and his family, the harsh battle for survival of small farmers in the Third World. A must see for all those who want to understand the world we live in.
